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Ear Trumpet is a piece about listening. It’s about the sound under the ground. The noises that you would miss if you didn’t listen for them. 

 

Made for people of all ages, the playful installation invites audiences to listen to enchanting contemporary classical music composed by Robert Lee (National Theatre, BBC, Cambridge University Press). In order to listen to the music, audiences choose from a series of elaborate Ear Trumpets created from converted euphoniums and brass instruments; listening devices which - as if by magic - make the barely audible sound loud and clear. Ear Trumpet draws upon notions of attentive listening pioneered by composer and revered sound ecologist Hildegard Westerkamp.

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By rendering the familiar act of listening strange, we invite audiences to delight in the discovery of the secret music under their feet.

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To listen to composer Robert Lee's Ear Trumpet Suite and to read his composition notes click here.

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For our tour pack, click here: 

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NARRATIVE: 

There is a geological fault line running under the whole of the Earth's crust. Eons-worth of sounds, both ancient and modern noise, is harmonically bound together, trapped inside our ancient rocks. For just a few days at a time, these sonic emissions erupt into volcanic explosions of sound - just audible above ground level. Gobbledegook has created the National Institute of Sonic Geology to investigate these ancient melodies. Find out more about the Ear Trumpet universe and Sonic Geology. 

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Ear Trumpet is a site-responsive work that has been performed extensively in the UK at events including Greenwich and Docklands International Festival, Salisbury International Arts Festival, Brighton Festival, Winchester Hat Fair and Inside Out Dorset. Gobbledeook has performed at Seoul Street Arts Festival, South Korea and in 2018 presented at the Pforzheim Festival, Germany.

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Ear Trumpet has featured as cover article for the International Academic Journal of Theatre and Performance Design.

 

The piece was inspired by the ancient ceremonial landscape of the South Dorset Ridgeway AONB and geological time.

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CAST:                                                        COMPANY:       

DR STELLA BARROWS : Lorna Rees                             MUSIC : Robert Lee

ROGER MILLINGTON : Jonathan Croose                     DESIGN : Adele Keeley

BEATRICE LATHENBY : Tamsin Fessey                          TRUMPET SCULPTOR : Jeremy Jacobs

HILDEGARD BRUNEL : Lynne Forbes                            SOUND : Alastair Goolden 

PERCIVAL 'PLUM' DENNY : Tim Bell                            CREATED and DIRECTED BY : Lorna Rees

DESMOND WILLIS : Alastair Goolden

EVELYN SUMMERFIELD : Onioluwa Taiwo 

MAVIS COLLINGWOOD : Nicky Bellenger

WOLFGANG LOVEJOY : Bob Karper

SIEGFRIED OBERHAUS : Frank Wurzinger

DR. SANBO LEE : Ki-Bong Lee

YOUNG SUNG KIM : Mina Kweon

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Our cast is usually made up of five sonic investigators - this list is our team of NISG approved investigators who have spent time 'in the field' 

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CREDIT:

Ear Trumpet was co-commissioned by Without Walls, a consortium of leading UK outdoor arts festivals. collaborating to break new ground in the creation of extraordinary outdoor work in the UK, Ageas Salisbury International Festival, Winchester Hat Fair and the Art by the Sea Festival. It has been supported by Activate Performing Arts, Inside Out Dorset and the Arts University Bournemouth. For more information on the work of Without Walls, please visit: www.withoutwalls.uk.com

Ear Trumpet, by Gobbledegook Theatre, was originally commissioned by Activate for the Inside Out Dorset Festival (supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund through the South Dorset Ridgeway Landscape Partnership, West Dorset District Council, Dorset County Council and Arts Council England). It has been supported through Grants for the Arts using public funding by Arts Council England.

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